Béatrice Godard has been interested in the socio-ethical issues of research and interventions in population health for several years. She has worked with researchers and health professionals on developing skills in ethics to help them pursue their research interests or their interventions in the health field. She has also worked with vulnerable individuals and groups (people with brain disorders, underprivileged populations, emerging populations) on the development of decision-making capabilities. More specifically, her research aims to examine (1) their concerns and needs in relation to the vulnerability situation in which they find themselves; and (2) the ethical processes to put in place to contribute to their empowerment. Her research work is centered on an empirical perspective and, to that end, she employs a wide range of qualitative and quantitative research methodologies.

My interdisciplinary training allows me to use tools from epidemiology, public health, informatics, and statistics to untangle the causes, forecast future burdens, and evaluate intervention effectiveness of vector-borne diseases. I am also interested in climate change implications for vectorborne diseases. Specifically, my research is focused on malaria, arboviruses (dengue, chikungunya, Zika), and most recently, Lyme disease. 

1. Evaluation of large-scale vector-borne disease interventions

I have been involved with evaluating the effectiveness of large-scale malaria interventions and programs including indoor residual spraying and universal bednet coverage in Uganda. I have recently begun to evaluate a community mobilization approach for arbovirus control in Fortaleza, Brazil with various partners. 

2. Infectious disease forecasting and spatiotemporal modelling

I am interested in applying different forecasting methods and data streams for disease burden estimations, and most recently exploring machine learning methods. I also use spatiotemporal methods to understand the patterns of disease emergence, identifying at-risk locations and time periods, and disease determinants.

3. Estimating the impact of climate change on vector-borne diseases (VBD)

Climate change will have important implications for future VBD and using different scenarios, we forecast future disease burdens using various methods.  We also consider sociodemographic changes and intervention scenarios in our work.

4. Improving disease surveillance

I am involved with various malaria surveillance projects which aim to integrate fragmented data sources and improve data harmonization. Most recently, we are evaluating the biases in reported arboviral cases in the national surveillance system in Colombia.